Archive for August, 2009

Most businesses, including all successful businesses, have a marketing plan, but all too often that plan is missing a key ingredient – the holes.  Marketers get too focused on the product or service they are selling and they forget about their customer, and more importantly, exactly what their customer is looking for.  They forget about the holes!

So what’s a hole?  Remember that nobody buys a drill because they want a drill.  They buy a drill because they want holes.  The “hole” is the solution to your customer’s problem.  The “hole” is what you should be addressing in your marketing, not the drill.  The hole is what your customer is really looking for.

I saw the new show Shark Tank the other night, and found it very interesting.  Inventors and entrepreneurs would approach the shark tank, a panel of five venture capitalists, and present their business plans, hoping to negotiate an offer from one of the sharks for the money they needed in exchange for a share of ownership in the company.

It was no surprise that over-valuations ran rampant, but what I was really glad to see was the care that the sharks took in determining the percent of ownership they would accept.  It was really quite simple.  If the shark thought the concept was profitable enough and the entrepreneur had a good grasp of the critical variables that need to be controlled for the business to succeed, then the shark would accept a 50% ownership share.  If the entrepreneur did not understand their critical variables, the sharks required at least 51% ownership before they would invest.  Obviously, they wanted the controlling interest to protect their investment from the entrepreneur they were partnering with.

The residential real estate market in the greater Tampa area is continuing to strengthen, a positive trend that began about four months ago.  In fact, some of the latest signs of this trend can be seen in the short sale arena.

In most any market, following the laws of supply and demand, a sale does not occur until we have both a willing seller and a willing buyer.  In short sales, however, a willing buyer and seller are not enough.  For a short sale to proceed, the seller’s bank must approve the deal after the buyer and seller have agreed to the terms.  Let me describe a recent sale to illustrate my point.

I’ve heard a lot of words used to describe this recession, and I don’t think grateful is one of them.  It’s certainly not the most common adjective most people think of when discussing a recession, but that’s exactly how I feel.  Grateful.  Before you think I’m some kind of nut-job that loves pain & misery, let me explain how I got here.

I was affected by this recession just like everyone else.  I experienced reduced sales, reduced income, evaporating profits, higher debt ratios and business losses.  In one case, the losses were enough that I chose to close one of my businesses.  These are not the sort of things I enjoy.